Man fears Irish prison will kill him with onions

A convicted sex offender has pleaded to be kept out of an Irish prison over fears that he will be killed by onions.

Peter Ivan Dunne, who has a severe allergy to red onions, says he could die from the onions in Irish prison food.

And, he claimed that his human rights would be breached if he was extradited to Ireland where he feared being killed "by the ingestion of red onions” there.

Dunne, 45, told two judges at the High Court in London that dietary needs are “routinely ignored” at Irish prisons.

The criminal feels that a failure to be served “a red onion-free Kosher diet” (Dunne is a convert to Judaism) would violate his Article 2 “right to life” as well as his Article 3 rights not to suffer inhuman or degrading punishment under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Dunne also alleged that prison officers had insulted his Jewish religion, made “religiously offensive jokes” and forced him to eat pork.

Justice Rafferty said: “The absence of evidence that prison staff in Ireland will guarantee service of exclusively onion-free Kosher food does not amount to a real risk of inhuman and degrading punishment.”

The sex offender, who is a Coventry native, is currently being held in Wandsworth Prison in London and is due to be sent to Ireland within the next few weeks.

He was convicted (in his absence) in October 2007 at Kilkenny Circuit Court of a sexual assault on a mentally disabled person, a crime that Dunne denied. He is now wanted back in Ireland for sentencing, where he fears he will be jailed